At the tiny épicerie where I’ve been happily buying the amazing butter–Beurre Bordier, I was stopped in my tracks by an interloper where it should be. And no Beurre Bordier.
“Are you out of the Beurre Bordier? Will you be getting more in?”
“Yes and no.”
He prefers the interloper. It’s called Beillevaire, and it’s classic butters–sweet, salted and crunchy-salted are not pasteurized (sorry friends in the US*, that means you’ll have to come to France to taste it). It’s cultured, which gives it a bit of a tang.
He only had the crunchy salted one, so I got it and took it home to taste against the Bordier demi-sel, my recent favorite.
Toasted up some bread and spread each piece with a different butter.
First of all, you can see there was a big difference in the color. The Beillevaire was much lighter—a true butter yellow. The color varies depending on the season and what the cows have been eating. It will be paler in the winter and yellower in the summer. It had a more complex flavor, probably because it’s cultured which gives it a more complex flavor.
The Bordier is/was awfully good, but the mouthfeel of the Beillevaire won me over.
Then.
Now.
I had some of the unsalted Beillevaire on toast. First off, I missed the salt, and then I noticed it had a weird taste. Like cheese. Not a happy taste (to me anyway).
All of these butters come with an expiration date. Usually they’ll be good for 2 weeks. If you’re not going to use it up within that time frame, I was told to cut it up and freeze it in pieces.
The piece with the weird taste was given to me by my friend in the épicerie because it was about to expire. I froze it and this was a defrosted piece. Maybe because of all this and the heat wave we’re going through, it had turned.
So, for the summer months, Beurre Bordier and Beillevaire for the cooler times? I’ll just have to keep trying. As my friend says, it’s a sucky sucky life.
*In the US you can get some good cultured butter from Vermont Creamery, or you can make your own (which is pretty easy).
